Page 13

TEN

Killian

I leaned against my bedroom door, the wood solid against my spine, and tried to catch my fucking breath.

Jesus Christ.

My jeans were still tangled around one ankle, my thighs trembling, and all I could think about was the sight of Jamie on his knees, lips slick and red, pupils blown wide with hunger.

That wicked tongue, those greedy hands, the way he’d looked up at me as if I was the only goddamn thing in the world worth worshiping.

And I’d let him. Hell, I’d needed it. Needed him .

And now?

Now, I was wrecked.

But not in a bad way .

Not like before .

I scrubbed a hand over my face, the echo of his name still caught in my throat.

Jamie. Brilliant, dangerous, chaotic Jamie.

The man who moved like smoke, burned like fire, and had more fury in him than sense.

The same Jamie I’d watched kill Ricardo without blinking, then turn around and help a bunch of terrified kids into the back of the truck as if he hadn’t just committed murder.

More than one, given the two lifeless guards in the hall.

He hadn’t hesitated. I had . And I hated myself for it.

Back then, there’d been nothing but chaos in him, in me. I’d looked at him and seen every bad decision I’d ever made staring back at me with haunted eyes and blood on his hands. I’d been so fucking furious—because he wasn’t supposed to do that shit on this case. Not on his own.

So I’d shoved him to his knees, half-mad with anger and need and fear. And maybe that made me an asshole, but fuck, he’d needed it— we had. That control, that surrender. It had been a way back for both of us.

I tipped my head against the door, eyes closed .

I wasn’t sure if I was more terrified that I needed him… or that he needed me.

And if I let him stay—if I let this become more than a fuck in the dark or a coping mechanism with teeth—what the hell would that make me?

I breathed out, slow and shaky, and finally peeled myself off the door.

This wasn’t over.

Not even close.

My phone chimed where it had landed on the floor, screen up, far enough out of reach that I had to bend for it with a groan. My thighs still trembled. I caught the message as the screen lit up—simple, direct, no punctuation.

Mickey : Safe

A knot in my chest unspooled. I sank on the edge of the bed, head in my hands, for a second before I typed out my reply:

Killian: Thank you. Couldn’t have done this without you. Sending funds now.

Then a quick message to Caleb, the closest thing I had to a conscience most days.

Killian : Extra 10 to Mickey.

I watched the message go through, then stared at the thread with Mickey for a long moment.

Caleb’s uncle was our safe place for anyone who needed help, fierce, providing a sanctuary, which our team funded from what we retained from the bad guys. And now, Mickey had taken in the ones Jamie had helped to save. All of them.

Caleb: On it

Caleb: Your guest has left?

I let out a slow breath and opened the app linked to the camera system outside my building.

I flicked to the front entrance and waited until the timestamp updated.

Then, there he was—Jamie. Bold as fuck, walking right out of the front doors of my high-end, glass-and-steel mausoleum as if he hadn’t dropped to his knees twenty minutes ago.

He didn’t look back.

Of course, he didn’t.

I watched him until he was out of frame.

Killian: Yeah

Caleb: Team needs to talk about this shit

Killian: Tomorrow

Only then did I strip, my skin tacky with sweat, and I didn’t let myself think too hard as I walked into the bathroom, turned the dial to scalding hot, and stepped into the shower, letting the water wash away the exhaustion.

I leaned into the tiles, one hand braced flat against the wall, chest heaving as if I’d run a mile, not just walked across my bedroom and stripped down.

My head throbbed with too many things—talking to Lassiter, trying to get intel, the kids, the fire…

Jamie’s mouth, Jamie’s eyes, the way he’d looked at me when I’d pushed him to his knees as if he wanted me to destroy him.

He’d killed those men. Slit their throats, left them to burn, as if it didn’t matter to him.

As if nothing could touch him.

And I wasn’t a killer. That line— that line—I hadn’t crossed. Not yet. I told myself I wouldn’t. I told myself that was what kept me clean. But I’d watched him kill Ricardo. Watched him. What the fuck did that make me? My jaw tightened.

The steam closed around me, hot and thick and blinding, but guilt clawed at the back of my throat, mixing with the sick twist of relief that the kids were safe, or the unbearable, maddening, hard truth of what my body was doing now. My cock was hard.

Already.

As if it couldn’t tell the difference between power and panic, fury and lust. As if it didn’t know Jamie had blood on his hands and I still wanted to pull him back here and take him . I squeezed my eyes shut.

You’re not a killer. That was what I told myself.

But if Jamie had looked up at me again, had touched me again—God, if he’d begged —I would’ve done whatever the hell he wanted.

And that scared the shit out of me. I scrubbed a hand down my chest, trying to will it away.

The tension. The need. But I couldn’t shake it—his voice, his breath on my skin, the way he’d opened for me like it was the only thing keeping him sane.

The only thing keeping me sane. This wasn’t clean. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t right .

And still, my hips jerked forward, chasing friction, release, and something that might feel like control but never would be.

I wanted to be angry with him. I tried to hold on to that fury.

I had to keep our distance, but all I could feel was the echo of my cock in his mouth, the desperate way he’d needed me to claim him, ruin him, anchor him.

And all I could see behind my eyes was the moment he’d slit Ricardo’s throat.

No hesitation. My hand slammed into the tile with a hollow thud.

I wasn’t ready to deal with what that meant, and I lost myself in thoughts of fucking an anonymous mouth, not blue-eyed, blond, Jamie, with his eyes full of fire.

Not Pretty .

But when I painted the tile with my release, I couldn’t catch my breath.

And that fucking hurt .

Awake and heading for a new day, I stared at my reflection—impeccable.

Pressed. Polished. The mirror didn’t lie, but it didn’t tell the whole story either.

As if nothing had happened. As if I hadn’t spent the night sweating through thousand-thread-count sheets, flinching awake every hour, replaying the grainy flashes of memory from a club backroom soaked in blood and adrenaline, the kids we’d gotten out, and Jamie’s wrecked, beautiful mouth.

My court armor was midnight black Tom Ford, a crisp white shirt and a surgical and deliberate knot in my tie.

I adjusted my cufflinks with steady hands, though my stomach hadn’t unclenched since 3 a.m., when I’d jolted out of another restless half-sleep and rechecked the camera feed and the app on my phone, which Caleb had created to track news. And again. And again.

There’d been no more messages from Mickey overnight. No news of the kids, which meant they were safe and alive. For now. But my mind kept circling the same cold, jagged loop: Were there cameras we didn’t know about at the club?

Caleb had been working last night and would have scrubbed any footage he’d found of me, and I hoped to fuck, Jamie, as well.

Had someone caught us on tape that Caleb couldn’t fix?

The kids out the back? Jamie in that hallway?

Me a shadow behind him, blood on the floor, a knife in his hand?

Did I look surprised? Or had I acted as if I were complicit?

I didn’t do this shit. I was calm and composed and in control.

Caleb had already started to spin the story with whispers on the right platforms. Three bodies.

Two with records. One still unnamed. Gang-related shooting in an underground club with suspected drug ties.

That was what they were saying. Clean, clinical, sleazy.

Wrapped in enough implication to turn everyone off caring.

“Fuck,” I mumbled, then straightened. “Good,” I said in my best court voice. “Let it stay that way.” There, that was better.

Let the world think it was simply another score settled between scumbags.

I didn’t care what the public thought of the dead—I just needed them not looking too closely at the living.

Because if anyone started digging? If someone put my name near that place, near that night ?

If the wrong defense attorney caught a whisper of it in the wind?

I couldn’t protect anyone. I couldn’t do my job.

I smoothed down the lapels of my jacket, adjusted how it sat across my shoulders, and pulled on the version of myself no one questioned.

The one who won arguments with a raised brow and took down district attorneys with three words or less.

The one who hadn’t let a killer fall to his knees and beg for ruin.

This was my compartmentalization. My ritual.

Six a.m. Caffeinated. Dressed like a lawyer. Due in court by ten.

I looked perfect even if I didn’t feel clean. I fastened the final button on my jacket, stared myself down in the mirror, and shut every door inside me. I couldn’t afford to feel today.

When I reached my building, I stepped out of the elevator into the 17th-floor reception to my law office all calm as if I hadn’t watched someone die twenty feet from me less than twelve hours ago.

“Good morning, Mr. McKendrick,” Andrea said, stepping in smoothly beside me, latte in one hand, tablet in the other.

“Court at ten, but Judge Alston’s already running behind on the Jenkins pre-trial.

You’ve got ten minutes to brief with Diaz and Chen.

You asked to see the statement edits for Barrett, I flagged the key changes?—”